Fifth grade teachers, Alicia Mohundro at Bonham Elementary and Amanda Williams at Johnson Elementary partnered to expand a reading activity beyond their classroom using Google Hangouts. Students read a play and then responded to open-ended questions to analyze what they had read. The students were placed in groups to debate which responses were the best and explain why. Students in both classes were given the opportunity to continue the debate by agreeing/disagreeing with explanation, their analysis of the play with students at a different campus.
Ms. Mohundro and Ms. Williams set up a scheduled Hangout between the two classes and groups rotated through the hangout station to discuss characterization, theme, author’s purpose, author’s use of characters and to draw conclusions and share inferences. To say the students were excited and engaged in this opportunity is an understatement. They were eager to share with each other and it was obvious that their questions and responses to each other were well thought out.
After the Hangout was over Ms. Mohundro took a few minutes to ask students to explain “I like this activity because…” or “I do not like this activity because…” Here are some of their responses.
“I like this activity because I was able to talk through my answer.”
“I like this activity because I didn’t completely understand the question but when the other group explained it, it made sense.”
“I like this activity because I got answers that I had not thought of.”
“I really liked having conversations with people about their answer and why they chose it.”
Ms. Williams shared that her students loved this experience and definitely want to do this again.
If you would like to learn more about Google Hangouts, please enter an Eduphoria Helpdesk Training/Support request. A member of the Instructional Technology Team would love to work with you or your team.